1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Thermococcus onnurineus MC02 and a method for producing hydrogen using the same.
2. Background Art
Hydrogen energy is in the spotlight as an alternative to fossil energy since it has three times higher heating power per unit weight than fossil energy and no adverse effect such as emission of carbon dioxide, NOx or SOx on environment.
There have been several methods to produce hydrogen such as water electrolysis, thermal cracking of natural gas or naphtha, steam reforming, etc. However, the traditional methods have some problems since they use fossil energy again to make high temperature and high pressure conditions for hydrogen production and generate the gas mixture comprising carbon monoxide having harmful environmental effects.
On the other hand, biological hydrogen production method using an organism has more advantages than the traditional methods since it does not need extra energy for high temperature or high pressure and it does not emit carbon monoxide gas. Such biological hydrogen production methods can be classified into two groups, i.e. a method using photosynthetic microorganisms and a method using non-photosynthetic microorganisms (mainly anaerobic microorganisms).
However, the biological hydrogen production method also have some technical problems since proper techniques for culturing high concentration of photosynthetic microorganisms requiring light as energy source have not been developed yet and the traditional photosynthetic microorganisms show severe substrate inhibition when the concentration of the substrate is high. Also, they can retain the hydrogen production potential only if the light source exists.
The inventors of the present invention discovered rchA gene located in front of the codh-mch-mnh3 cluster and confirmed that a promoter inducing the expressions of rchA gene and codh-mch-mnh3 cluster can increase hydrogen production from carbon monoxide.